Who benefits from cloning?

Government puts science in the service of corporate profits

Untitled Document
Once again, science marches on — trampling
right over us in the false name of progress and efficiency. The latest advance of science is the cloning of
animals. “We can make every cow precisely like its progenitor,”
exult the lab techs working for corporate cloners. “This eliminates
uncertainty in meat production, for every cut can be the exact same
texture, taste, and composition. We have achieved the efficiency of the
assembly line inside the animal itself!”Yeah, well, what about the little oddity of cloned
animals’ having a startlingly high propensity to die before birth or
shortly after? What about the abnormal rate of birth defects and health
problems that clones have? Do we really want our families eating that? “Oh, tut-tut,” retort the clonists.
“Don’t you know that the FDA has now declared meat and dairy
products from cloned animals safe? Don’t worry, pal; the Bush
administration has given the OK for meat and dairy corporations to market
the cloned stuff to you — without even labeling the product as
cloned. Trust us!”Now I really am worried. Besides, we are lucky to have an abundance of meat
and dairy products with a wide variety of flavors and textures produced by
unique environments, farmers, and artisans all across our country. Why
would we give up all of that richness for a cloned uniformity? There is a useful Latin phrase that we all should
repeat whenever corporate science and government team up to push another
technological “advance” on us: Cui
bono? Who benefits? Cloning has nothing
to do with helping consumers, farmers, the economy — and certainly
not the animals. It’s just another shortcut to concentrate profit and
power in corporate hands. Jim Hightower is a national radio commentator,
columnist, and author.